Post 8

According to Deborah Brandt in her article Sponsors of Literacy a sponsor is, "a powerful figures who were usually richer, more knowledgeable, and more entrenched than the sponsored, sponsors nevertheless enter a reciprocal relationship with those they underwrite, but also stand to gain benefits from their success." Some of the most common examples we think of are parents, teachers/professors, editors, authors, etc. A Literacy Sponsor is "someone or some institution that helps or hinders your path to becoming literate." In Malcom X's case some of his sponsors were his teacher, the Norfolk Prison Colony, Bimbi, and Elijah Muhammad. Not all sponsors have a positive effect on an individual. For example Malcom X's teacher blatantly told him that he would never become a lawyer based on his race, causing him to drop out. However, this influenced him to fight for African American rights by looking up to leaders like Bimbi, Muhammad, and the Norfolk Prison Colony. His sponsors were determined by socioeconomic conditions like race and class because that's just how it was back then. Many saw African Americans as inferior and they were therefore treated as such. His sponsors constrained him by providing limited resources and negativity toward him and his race. A person can only learn what is provided for them. Although these constraints may seem to have limited him or provide negativity, they could have been what sparked his drive or interest in fighting for justice, but that leaves us wondering what could he have been like if the discrimination was not a factor?